tech fix.its web content
How to write so
customers learn
from your Web site
by Gwyneth Dwyer
“I just visited your Web site. I’d like to talk to you about what I found there.”
Imagine, for a moment, one of your customers saying this. Or a prospect. Or a shareholder. Or a potential employee.
Would you cringe? Or would you prepare for a compliment?
With the Web playing an increasingly larger role in the relationship between companies and key stakeholders, you need to give your Web writing serious thought. Consider the case of The Vanguard Group, which for years sold its products — mutual funds, annuities, 401(k)s — by phone and mail.
In the 1990s, the Internet became a natural sales vehicle for Vanguard. By 1999, vanguard.com was well established, although the company still handled 100,000 phone calls per day. Today, according to CIO magazine, Vanguard receives 40,000 calls daily — but 150,000 log-ons to www.vanguard.com.
More than half of Vanguard’s transactions are now conducted online. Online customers invest 150 percent more and are more loyal than non-Web customers, while the cost of serving them is just five percent of what it costs when a financial services professional is involved.
Countless companies tell the same story. The bottom line: it’s in your company’s best financial interest to develop and maintain a professional, easy-to-navigate, well written Web site. With sites like vanguard.com setting the standard, Web users today have little patience with confusing, poorly written sites that do not meet their needs.
So how do you know if the writing on your Web site is working? Step inside your customers’ shoes and take a long hard look at your site from their perspective. If your customers took the time to articulate their Web needs, this is what they would tell you:
Please address me directly.
“I’ve come to your site, but it doesn’t sound like you’re talking to me.”
Your Web site should be written in first or second person, present tense, active voice. It should have a warm conversational tone. If it’s too distant and formal, it will be off-putting to your audiences.
Keep in mind that Web copy feels more personal to potential customers than printed materials. Users are interacting with your site and they want to feel welcome, the minute they arrive.
Please pay attention to my needs
“This isn’t about you. It’s all about me.”
Visitors to your site might patiently and politely read about your company for a while, but what they’re really interested in is how your products or services benefit them.
The fundamental rule of good marketing applies: avoid content that is entirely “We Are” oriented. Instead, seek to develop content that is “You Get” oriented.
One way to achieve this goal is to use a “persona-based methodology,” in which you create several fictional characters whose lives and needs represent the different audiences you serve.
By actually naming these characters and writing mini biographies for them, you’ll do a much better job of gearing your Web content to their needs. And you’ll avoid the all-too-common trap of letting technology, rather than customers, drive your Web content.
Schwan’s Home Service in Marshall, Minnesota, providing online grocery shopping and home food delivery, successfully used this persona-based methodology in a recent site redesign. To clarify site functionality and unify the development team, Schwan’s created three behind-the-scenes fictional characters, whose attributes were based on in-depth proprietary research. These characters then served as touchpoints for everyone involved in the development of www.schwans.com.
To ensure that your Web site has relevance, purpose and interest for the people who will actually use it, ask your Web-content developers (formerly known as “writers!”) to employ a persona-based methodology. Yes, it takes time, but the payoff is significant: content that’s unambiguously focused on the needs of your audience.
Please answer my questions.
“I came to your site to learn _____. I couldn’t find the answer. So I left.”
Surely you know the questions your customers are asking. Your marketing department knows the questions that prospects typically ask. Your human resources department knows what questions potential employees ask.
Your Web site should answer all these questions — clearly and completely. Or at least, in the case of prospects, thoroughly enough to motivate a phone call for more information.
When developing content for your Web site, take the time to interview the people in your organization who have the answers. Then make these answers easily and quickly available, through compelling headlines, excellent navigation and useful links.
You should avoid the temptation to put all this content into your FAQs (frequently asked questions). While FAQs are certainly useful, the high-level questions your audiences are asking should be answered on the main pages of your site.
Please value my time.
“I only have five minutes to find what I need.”
Web readers scan. They’re always busy — frequently impatient. To capture their attention, you should use informative subheads, concise paragraphs and bulleted lists. The content of your subheads should be meaningful and complete.
Avoid blind, obtuse or repetitive subheads that don’t advance your readers’ understanding. You do not build goodwill when readers must expend extra effort trying to decipher confusing text.
Please don’t bore me.
“If you don’t engage me, I’ll find what I need somewhere else.”
Make sure your Web copy is skillful, succinct writing that captures attention and holds interest, tells a story, engages the senses. Don’t be afraid to write with personality, even if your content is serious. If you do, your visitors will stay longer, become customers rather than prospects and — best of all — send your URL to others.
Does all this sound a bit daunting?
If so, consider engaging the services of a professional writer. Product and technical professionals should certainly review copy and provide essential input, but they shouldn’t write the content even if it’s complex. A skilled Web writer does one thing extraordinarily well — write — with authority, clarity and style.
Writing is the essential Web skill because it’s writing what will ultimately engage your visitors. Once that happens, visitors are more likely to become loyal customers, even advocates.
[contact] Gwyneth Dwyer is director of writing services at Larsen Design + Interactive, a branding, graphic design, and interactive communications firm with offices in Edina and San Francisco.: 952.835.2271; g.dwyer@larsen.com; www.larsen.com.
